Hail The Epic-Size Hero

By RICHARD SCHICKEL

PELLE THE CONQUEROR Directed and Written by Bille August

Whiteness: the perfect whiteness of an enveloping fog. Muted sounds: voices, the creak of sails and rigging. Very slowly, the outlines of a 19th century sailing ship begin to take shape through the brume. The great image that opens Pelle the Conqueror turns out to be a perfect emblem for the long, entirely absorbing work that unfolds: very simple yet powerfully, mysteriously absorbing.

That ship carries Swedish immigrants seeking work in Denmark. Among them are an old man, Lasse (Max von Sydow), and his young son Pelle (Pelle Hvenegaard). The former is too old and the latter is too young to be prime prospects for the labor force in a land that is prejudiced against foreigners. Besides, Lasse is a recent widower who drinks too much. Although he is capable of bluster, it is impotent, one more demonstration that a long, hard life has defeated him.

They are the last of their ship to be hired, by the casually sadistic foreman of Stone Farm, which is both ironically and aptly named. Its holdings, bordering a wild, beautiful seacoast, are large and fertile; there is nothing stony about them. But its walled farmyard is like a prison; its heavy gates are locked each night, and workers are treated like convicts.

To live thus in the midst of plenty naturally increases the workers' wretchedness. And their condition mirrors their masters'. For the farm's owners also live hellishly in heavenly surroundings. Their home is as handsome as their well-favored lands. But the husband is a womanizer whose wife literally howls her misery over his infidelities (and ultimately takes a just and terrible revenge on him).

Stone Farm is clearly a microcosm of the world, Eden after the fall. And Pelle must inevitably lose his innocence as he explores this ruined Paradise, but not his sense that there must be more to life than the evils that incessantly assault his eye, or his inarticulate hope of finding some new Jerusalem beyond his constricted horizon. This maintenance of faith is, indeed, his conquest. And it is given force and poignancy by its contrast with the defeat of his father's ever dwindling dreams.

Yes, allegory is quietly at work here. But it is a form of generalization, and the greatness of this film derives, finally, from its specificity. Pelle is rich in characters and subplots, and as the seasons turn, they intersect, diverge and intersect again, forming a rough, wonderfully textured weave, unlike anything one is used to brushing against in the modern cinema. The boy's chief tormentor is a trainee manager, an arrogant ninny. The figure Pelle most admires, because his courage contrasts so vividly with Lasse's discouragement, is the farm's resident revolutionist, risking all, losing all (in the film's most shattering passage), by boldly leading a short-lived revolt.

These little lives, spun out in a time and place far distant from us, would be easy to ignore. But they are all vividly played, and Bille August's gifts for austere, striking imagery and for the short, perfectly shaped scene impart to this film an epic richness, range and energy.